Accountable Care Organizations

How to Create Accountable Care Organizations

In light of the high and rapidly growing cost of healthcare in the U.S., there has been growing interest both in the federal government and in states and regions across the country in finding ways to encourage health care providers to take greater accountability for the overall cost as well as the quality of healthcare delivered to patients. A healthcare provider or group of providers that accepts accountability for the total cost of care received by a population of patients has been termed an "Accountable Care Organization."

Although there has been growing support for creating such Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), there has been relatively little exploration of how an ACO would actually achieve the goals envisioned for it, what it would look like organizationally, or how it would come into existence. How to Create Accountable Care Organizations attempts to fill this gap.

The report addresses key issues such as:

• what an Accountable Care Organization should be accountable for, and the likely strategies it would use in order to be successful;
• the types of healthcare providers that can and should be included in an Accountable Care Organization, which organizational structures would support success in managing the desired accountability, and which organizational characteristics might present barriers to success;
• the changes in healthcare payment systems which would need to be made in order to encourage and support the creation and operation of Accountable Care Organizations;
• what governments and communities can and should do beyond payment reforms to create an environment that encourages the formation and successful operation of Accountable Care Organizations; and
• transitional approaches that can help healthcare providers begin accepting greater accountability on a path toward becoming Accountable Care Organizations.

Download the Executive Summary.

Download the full report.

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